


The Bet

by MoonlightShines (Thatkillervibe)



Category: Stargirl (TV 2020)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Pining, Pre-Relationship, flirty!Beth, oblivious!Rick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:33:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26741413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thatkillervibe/pseuds/MoonlightShines
Summary: Beth comes up with a foolproof plan to get Rick to go out with her.
Relationships: Beth Chapel/Rick Tyler
Comments: 3
Kudos: 19





	The Bet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CanaryWarrior](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CanaryWarrior/gifts).



> Because someone wanted flirty!Beth and I couldn't say no...

Beth folds the paper she’s holding onto in half, then again, biting her lip to conceal her smile as she sneaks up on Rick half dozing off on the couch.

The Pit Stop is still open, Pat was making conversation with one of his customers downstairs, but up in the loft it’s quiet, and the curtain over the only window is pulled over. Rick must’ve crashed here after his weekend shift helping Pat with keeping up the shop.

She leans over from behind, peering at his face and resists the urge of messing up his hair just for the kick of it. 

“Sleepy?” 

Rick blinks and makes some noise between a groan and a yawn. He pulls himself up from his sunken position and shoots her a boyish smile, rubbing one of his fists over his eye. “Hey.” 

“Hi.” Beth’s fingers are still fidgeting around the paper. She may have spent several hours hunting the deep and confusing academic side of the internet for what she was looking for. “I have a little something for you.” 

Either this is going to work or this is going to work. She woke up early this morning strategizing, planning her delivery and predicting his reaction. So far she hopes she didn’t miscalculate. 

“What?” 

Beth waves the white mysterious square above his head. “Only the world’s most difficult chemistry problem. Bet you can’t do it.” 

“What?!” Rick shoots up. “Give me that!” 

And just like that, she has his interest. 

Beth spins on her heel, whisking it away as he reached up to grab it. Rick twists around, leaning on his arm as he watched her hide it behind her back. 

“Wait,” she says. “What do I get first?” 

“What do you get what?” 

“What do I get when you can’t solve it?” She keeps her tone light, pretends like her heart isn’t beating faster in her chest. Doesn’t allow her voice to make any falter as she suggests, “Dinner?” 

Rick lets out an indignant scoff. “What makes you so sure I can’t?” 

She dangles it in front of him, watching gleefully as his eyes got big and round. What a gigantic geek. All she had to do was promise the challenge of some chemistry equations and she got him all fired up right out of a nap? “Prove me wrong then.” 

“Fine! It’s on.” He takes the paper and unfolds it, flapping his other hand at her to help get him extra scrap paper as he searches the pockets of his worn jacket for the leaky pen he kept wrapped in a paper towel.

Beth made the mistake of asking him about that once when she offered to buy him a new one. Turns out it used to be his dad’s good fountain pen, left abandoned in his study for Rick to find, and spend years chewing the cover on. He doesn’t mind the ink. 

Beth reaches into her bag, five steps ahead of him, taking out the graph paper he’s going to need. He looks up at her, momentarily surprised. Then not.

His eyes scan the numbers and letters and equations on the page, and he’s already mumbling out some type of gibberish Beth doesn’t even want to try following. 

Ten minutes turn into fifteen, then twenty, and Beth unabashedly stares at Rick. He’s still on the couch, with littered graph paper all around him. 

“Damn it,” he says after realizing something’s not right. Beth is aching to ask just how far along he got but doesn’t want to ruin this competitive fueled frenetic energy she could live off of just by observing.

“Stuck?” she singsongs. Sitting on the coffee table, she keeps ripping out sheets of graph paper when he sticks a hand out for one. 

“Nooooo,” he lies through the pen now between his teeth. 

“It’s okay if you can’t figure it out, Rick. It’s okay.” 

He pries the pen out of his mouth. “No, I can do it,” he answers stubbornly. He’s rattling off theoretics, and she knows it’s just for him to make sense of the problem as he goes through it. 

Beth interrupts, touching his jittery knee. “Well, if you do, then I will take you out for coffee.” She holds her breath, wondering if that will tear his gaze from his calculations for a second long enough to see her be serious. 

Instead, he’s batting her prodding hand away with his pen, playful and distracted. “You’re on.” 

Beth sighs after a few more minutes go by. Maybe this isn’t the best way to get his attention. “Can I at least sit on the couch?” she asks. “I’m feeling tired.” 

That snaps Rick right out of work. His face clouds over guiltily, realizing he completely littered the couch with his equations and other dead ends. “Yeah, shit.”

He brushes the balls of paper he deemed too ridiculous to be worth keeping. “Yeah, Beth of course.” 

She plops herself, on the couch, and goes as far as placing her head in his lap. It’s self-indulgent, Beth is well aware, but she’s been overtly flirting with Rick for almost three months now to his complete and utter oblivion. At this point, Beth will take what she can get from him. 

He’s slowing down as Beth shifts, realizing one of his balled up papers is poking at her back. She pulls it out, opening it up and smoothes the crinkles and wrinkles and creases.

Her brows pull together, reading his handwriting. She knew Rick was very smart with chemistry, but this is the next level. It looks like something right out of Einstein’s journal. It really does.

“Wow,” she murmurs, more to herself than meant for him to hear. “Okay, genius.” 

“Those are all of my _mistakes_ ,” he points out. 

Beth tilts her head up at him and licks her lips. “You make good mistakes then.” 

He chuckles, and their eyes meet. Beth wants nothing more than to reach up in the short space between them to kiss him. 

She pulls her gaze away, not wanting him to see her get flushed so up close. She takes a breath, and fiddles with the rainbow pendant of her necklace instead.

Of course, sometimes Beth wants to quit playing these games with him and just up and tell him she likes him. Really, really likes him.

But a part of her worries he knows she’s flirting and is ignoring her because he doesn’t feel the same. A bigger part wants the satisfaction of seeing the realization dawn on his face. The realization that he’s wanted. Hopefully, the happiness that maybe his own feelings are returned? 

That’s likely wishful thinking.

“So,” he says casually, “How long does it usually take the experts to finish questions like these?” 

“Chuck says six weeks.” 

_“What?!?”_

Beth lets out a laugh. “Yeah, you might as well throw in the towel–I was thinking dinner at–” 

“Beth I’m like–halfway done.” 

It’s her turn to startle. She nearly loses her balance completely and tumbles over the side of the couch. _“What?!?”_

The entire plan was to get him to give up so she’d get a dinner date out of it. Rick wasn’t actually supposed to be almost finished in a fraction of the time–what? 

“You’re a literal prodigy!” Beth can’t even conceal her googly eyes. 

And yet, she can hear– suspiciously in Chuck’s voice–

_A chemistry mastermind, yes, but can’t see it between two people if he tried._

Rick seems suddenly embarrassed. “Well…” 

Beth gets up and holds out a hand. “Come on, Mr. Prodigy-Man. How about pizza?” 

“I thought you said dinner is for when I give up. I didn’t give up, Beth.” 

He lets her pull him away from the couch anyway. 

“This can be our pre-dinner dinner. You can always get back to it later.” 

“ _Pre-dinner_ dinner?” he teases. 

Her hand is on her hip. “I said what I said.” 

Rick gives her another sideglance. “You are really feisty today, you know that?” 

Beth does her best not to look too pleased. “Is that a problem?” 

“No.” He sticks his hands into his pockets, shooting her another glance. “It’s fun. I like this side of you.” 

Beth is pretty sure that sentence will make her week. 

They pass by Pat downstairs as they head out of the Pit Stop. He takes one good look at them and rolls his eyes. Beth shrugs discreetly. No, nothing has changed. Yes, she’s still pining. No, Rick hasn’t stopped being blind to it. Yes, Beth still wants him anyway. No, she can’t explain it. Beth wraps her arm around his as they get to the sidewalk. 

_“I like you,”_ she blurts out randomly. Although to her, it is so not random. Beth did not mean to say it like that. She honestly did not. But it was kinda on a repetitive chant in the back of her mind, beside her homework and JSA puzzle pieces she still feels the need to prod over. 

Rick smiles. “Yeah, I like you too.” 

She can tell by the way he says it as they walk up to the diner that he still has totally no idea. 

“Actually–” 

He turns, arching an eyebrow and Beth loses her nerve. 

“Never mind.” She heaves another longing sigh, pushing on the glass door and plasters on a smile. “Pepperoni?” 

One of these days he’ll get it. 


End file.
